#13 - Smear campaigns, losing friendships and elite clubs

Hey, ya litle cutie pie! 

Here's the video I mentioned of the mom who wasn't invited to the wedding 

YOU'RE DOING GREAT. I LOVE YOU!!!! bye! 

@christie.heals 

Transcript

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Hey little cutie pie, how you doing? How you healin'? Good? Yeah? Maybe? Awesome! Unclench that jaw, you're gonna be just fine. I think you're doing fantastic. Okay? Your only competition is yourself. Don't compare yourself to anyone else who hasn't been through anything that you've been through. Because it's not the same. I posted a video today about this mom whose daughter went no contact and didn't invite her to her wedding, and it's popping off. And I just gave my two cents. And there's some very funny commentary in there. Great comments from all of you all telling your stories, and then there's always a couple, a couple of the parents who tell on themselves who come into the comments, and they just it's it's very entertaining to say the least. So I will link out to that and you can go check it out. But essentially, that woman was smear campaigning her daughter online. It was a very victim mentality, like, nah, I guess after three years, I could just call you and ask you, like, has it been enough punishment? And in the video, I break down why this her all of her language was very scorekeeper-like. No contact is not punishment, it's like a consequence. And just the way she was talking, it was all me versus you, not us against the world. So there was no repair language. She was it just the second I watched it, I was like, this is the easiest softball. Like, give me a baseball bat. I have enough time to stretch, I see the ball coming, and just boom! It was such a good, easy example of this victim mentality that estranged parents have. And I talked about convenient amnesia. She's like, I just don't know what I did. How is that possible? But we're gonna talk about that today because she really doesn't know what she did, and I'm gonna tell you why. And it has a lot to do with why people do smear campaigns, which are deliberate attacks on your character. They want to do anything to keep their own facade intact, including getting people to not like you anymore. And it can be your own family members. And I have to tell you, I have been through like a hundred of these now. A hundred. I'm not kidding. Between my corporate career and being a high achiever, god forbid, a pretty woman is also smart and wants to protect the revenue streams. Between my family, between my divorce, between all the friendships that blew up when I started to stand up for myself. A smear campaign to me now is like the doorbell ringing. I'm like, is it important? Ugh, no, I don't need pest control, go away. It's like spam, it's like junk mail. I'm like, ew, why are you wasting resources? Stop it. I don't need this. So I'm gonna tell you a little bit about like how I have mastered the art of surviving the smear campaign, and just help you understand a little bit more about why they're doing it. It's not that it's okay, it's not excusable, it's not cool, it's very emotionally immature, underdeveloped, toddler type stuff. But these targeted attacks at your character and discrediting you and purposefully making you look bad to people, telling half-truths. I was like thinking about it like there's no way that these people really are just evil. I think that there's a 1% of 1% of people that really need to be locked up and they're psychopaths and they like kill people. Sure. Totally. But the people who put on smear campaigns like the ones I've been through, if I really think about it, it's like they're just super deeply traumatized. And it's just too painful for them to consider the idea that they've done something wrong. Just like the woman in the video today. So seriously, go watch that video, it's a good example. So when they do something that breaks trust in the relationship, like cheating, or with my mom, it was begging to watch my kids and then catching her noticeably under the influence when I picked them up. They can't face what they've done. The story just starts at you blew up at them, or you stopped talking to them, or you like ended the relationship, or you held them accountable, and how dare you. And they like clutch at their pearls to try and rationalize a way that you are responsible as a defense mechanism to protect their own ego. That's how fragile these people really are on the inside. They kind of, not kind of, they hate themselves, they've never met themselves, they are not on a healing journey because that probably scares them. They probably also peaked in high school, if at all. But it's it's just easier for them to tell themselves stories and other people's stories that they start to believe their lies. If they feel much more comfortable being the victim than taking a moment and saying, wait a minute, what did I do to contribute to this? They don't have that speed. Remember, I compared these people to like an iPhone 1, and they see us with emotional intelligence, and they're looking at us shooting a video in 10, what is it, 1080p 4K, 10, 20 minute video on our iPhone 16, whatever. And they're like, Why are you doing that? That's so stupid. And you're like, Oh, you just don't know how. Like, I'm trying to repair the relationship, you're not capable, so I gotta go. Does that make sense? These people are very underdeveloped, but they can be very successful. They can be entrepreneurs, they can be millionaires, they can be your retired boomer parents with a pool and a big McMansion that no one visits. Five bedrooms and uh nobody ever comes over. It's so weird. That's okay, that's a consequence of their actions. But this this targeted takedown is intentionally made to protect them. I'm not really sure if they know they've done something bad, but when stuff gets when stuff would get back to me on MySmear campaigns of like why I got divorced, it was like laughable, it was hilarious, it was bizarre. My mom took my ex-mother-in-law out to lunch and told her that I was crazy and I was making things up, and I must have I needed medication, and I needed, I needed serious help. Oh, oh, she loved that one. I was hormonal. And I like the stories she smear campaigned me to my own brothers. I realized over time that one of my brothers just really didn't want to talk to me anymore. And when we did talk, he had a way of making me feel ungrateful for mom's help to watch the kids. And it took me a while to realize she's talking about me to my own brother, rather than saying, uh, I kind of messed up and broke trust with her. Same with my ex-husband. Like the stories that came out, I was like, well, that's a stretch. Okay, that's fine. I endured a lot of pain, and it can be so tempting to stick up for yourself. Okay, so here's what's weird with a smear campaign: it often gets out before you even had a chance to really even think about telling what happened to you. They want to get in front of your version of the story. So they know, I think they do know that they messed up. And it's a very quick recognizing that they messed up and immediately into protective mode. Immediately into let's get ahead of the story and give them bad coverage, like you, so that when I get bad coverage, it's not, it's gonna sound like the other person's guilty. And smear campaigns can often accuse you of the things that they did to you. My mom would do this a lot. She would like flip out and loose her cool at me, and then my dad would call and be like, your mother just told me that you yelled at her, and I would be like, Oh my god, what? Um, okay, that's like literally the opposite of what happened. But they they want to get ahead of the bad press. And they're so willing to protect their own ego that they're willing to betray their own child or betray their spouse and just be like, yeah, they're like jump into this victim mentality. They'll tell some truths to make it sound believable, but they'll also totally bake in some full-out lies. And what was weird for me was going to school drop-off, and people like neighbors and friends and people who I used to be close to in the community that we live in, suddenly teachers even were like turning their back on me. And at first I didn't know what was going on, and I knew divorce was still a little taboo, and people are a little spooked by someone, a woman being like, eh, this messed up stuff is not gonna be my story. People get a little weirded out by that, which I hope is changing. I thought it was just my divorce, but it it what started to come out and what started to cause me to lose friends was what was being said about me by my ex-mother-in-law, by my ex-husband, and then eventually by my own mother, because I went in no contact with her, so she befriended my abuser and his family, and now she still sees my kids. Whoop-de-doo, here we are. But as people started to tell me what was being said, I also realized the people who were telling me, I was like, oh, well, why was she so comfortable telling you this? And why did it take you so long to tell me? So I was able to kind of identify like there's a great purge that can happen with a smear campaign. I suddenly realized a lot of my friends were kind of on the fence about me. And people will do that. Listen, none of this is personal. None of this is personal. People will protect themselves because they're just not brave, they're just not confident, they're not secure in themselves, so they have a hard time standing up for what's right. That doesn't make you not worthy of being stood up for. It means most people just are very basic humans who will not be remembered. They're more comfortable being safe and doing groupthink, and like you gotta, you those people aren't your friends. They may be friendly to you still, and you may still want to like cling to them for dear life, but I had to realize that a lot of my neighbors were um not as close with me as I thought they were. But it was good because those people were on the fence about me regardless, so at least now I knew. But for a while there, it felt like people were dropping like flies. And it was initially like super scary because there was a massive shedding. My first year I got divorced, I ended like 50 relationships, friendships, neighbors. Some of them ended quietly where we just stopped talking. Some of them, you know, they they'd ask me to hang out, and I'd be like, no, thanks. Like, I'm I'm good. And then, like, did I do something? Like, I don't even, there's no point in telling people, like, well, you were at this this get together where everybody was talking about me, and I found out from so-and-so, and you don't even tell me, and you didn't, I don't, it sounds like you didn't say, like, there's no point. You just know who's got your back and who doesn't, and you're like, deuces. It doesn't have to be a big throwdown every time. I love that I mastered the the Irish goodbye in a in a relationship, too. Like, it's funny when you stop reaching out to people, notice who stops reaching out to you. And it's it's not personal, it's just that that relationship wasn't as deep as you thought it was, and people go through different seasons of life, but like the people who have your back will always have your back, no matter what you're going through. Um, so there was, yeah, there was like a really rocky couple months there, up to a year, where I didn't know if anyone had my back, which is why I kind of walked it alone for a while. But here's how I learned how to master the uh the pain of what gets told to you, because I mean the things that got back to me were ridiculous and they were hurtful. Um, I started journaling, and I know it sounds dumb to journal, it's not dumb. This will change your life. Journaling three pages a day, either documenting what was going on or just talking about my feelings about it, like just write for three pages about anything you want. And that kind of helped me learn about myself and calm down enough to keep a record of this and process in real time. It's funny, when you're writing, you can your brain moves a little bit slower for the sake of it has to catch up to your hands, so you have more time to formulate a thought. And I I kind of was able to help myself through some of these low valleys of being like, well, in writing, that kind of looks ridiculous. I don't believe that about myself. I knew the smear campaigns weren't true, but like, nobody loves me. I'm never gonna have any friends. What the heck is this? And then I'm like, no, I know that's not true, but it that's why journaling's helpful. I also obviously got a therapist. At one point, I had three therapists on rotation. One was doing childhood regression on me, one was a hypnotist, and I had another one that was just like a basic everyday therapist. I also had a life coach for a second. Like I had all hands on deck because I was trying to build a business and raise these kids, and it was a lot. I was, I was like, it was like being at war, and I needed my team around me. And I know that's not realistic. It's very, it was very expensive, but I do therapy in sprints, so I worked with these people for like two months and I made a ton of progress. And I also started really investing in my appearance because if everybody's already talking about you, you might as well look good. You don't want to show up somewhere in sweatpants when everyone's murmuring about oh. You want to look your best. Almost to the point of pissing people off. And now it's become my style. But for a while there, I got very obsessed with the old money look. Like I would wear nice clothes and gold jewelry, gold plated, from Gorgiana. I love Gorgiana. I would always have my hair done. If I was going to a school event, I always looked nice, and now it's become part of my routine. I really don't leave the house unless I'm looking my best. And I do that because it's like armor, but it's also like if you're gonna be talking about me and watching me, I want to make sure you enjoy the show. I want to make you second guess everything because you were wrong about all of it, you little goofballs. So watch me shine, watch me elevate, because through all of this, you've all taught me how much I love myself, and I love myself a lot. And now when I show up at the school, I think a lot of people who maybe heard something about me but didn't know me. And I live in a small community, so word spreads fast. Um, people are much friendlier to me now. I think any of those rumors where people didn't know me very well, they're kind of like, oh no, she's great. I know her now. I've I've seen her many times, she's always very friendly. She looks put together, her kids seem happy. She's got a smile on her face and she looks super confident. Like, how could this woman be so awful? So, anyone on the outskirts who just didn't know me very well but was hearing secondhand, I think they were like, this can't be true. Um, and the look on someone's face when you know they've been talking about you, like certain people who I've already mentioned, I'm not gonna drill it into the ground, but when you show up somewhere looking nice and the look on their face when they see you, like they're pissed. And you don't do it for them, you're doing it for yourself, and you're doing it to show up and say, You did that to me, you tried to bury me, and all you were doing was planting these amazing seeds of the woman I've become. You've made me so resilient. I can't thank you enough. Thank you for being so awful. Um, do it for yourself, dress nice. If people are looking at you, if people are watching you, look the part, be the main character. It's fun. And like I said, now I have a really great wardrobe that I just love. I love to go places because I feel good about myself. Um and let's see, I hope I covered everything. This is the last part I wanted to make sure I covered. Today's episode's gonna be a little bit shorter. I want you to know if you've been smear campaigned, good for you. Because most people are never gonna be lucky enough to experience something like that if you think about it. Most people don't ever do anything remarkable, like I was just saying. Most people are like part of the herd, mediocre at best. Like when they talk about themselves, nobody listens, so they have to talk about other people. If you're that person that's being talked about, and all you ever wanted was for people to get along and to treat each other with respect and to do the right thing, if that's what caused your smear campaign, man, you're powerful. People had to band together to try and take you down, and it didn't work because you're still here. So a smear campaign is a rite of passage. And as long as you're not like the local serial killer, you've probably told the truth so hard that someone else just couldn't handle it. And certain people just they can't handle accountability, they can't ever fess up to what they've actually done, they're incapable of repair, which is why it's good that you got away from them. But part of the payment of getting away from them is sometimes a smear campaign. But if it sheds off who's your friend and gives you a more honest look at like who in your life actually is on your side, that's a gift. They did you a favor. And if you have to walk it alone for a while like I did, don't panic. You're good. You must have a big purpose. You're gonna be just fine. It's very uncomfortable to be alone, but um it's not forever. And just like a play has to like the stage has to go dark so they can bring on the new part of the set so that they can do act two. You're just things are dark for a minute. They're get ready. Your life's going into a new chapter. It's gonna be okay. And people are always gonna talk. But some people are never gonna have a smear campaign because they just talk trash about people and they just don't do anything worth talking about, you know? So good for you. Um I couldn't sleep during one of those a few of those early smear campaigns, too. So, like, melatonin's awesome. Like, make sure you're getting rest. Don't believe the things, like, you know what happened to you, too. You know your truth. You can stand firm in the fact that you know what happened. And that this is ridiculous. It doesn't make sense because it's so immature, it's something you would never do, which is why this person's acting like a wiggly worm that you're out of their life. You probably called them out, or you just decided you had enough, and good for you. And the more unhealed the person, the more unhinged the behavior. And crazy attracts crazy. So their audience who just wants to hear all the gossip, like, forget them. I was gonna say F them, but there might be kids listening. You're gonna be just fine. And a smear campaign means that you're meant for something different, and sometimes the universe has to like shake us up a little bit to let us get us to let go of something that's binding us so that we can receive what's meant for us. And that's a good thing. So if you've been smear campaigned, you're super cool in my book. Congratulations, you're part of an elite club. And I will say, going back to read my old journals, I'm really glad I wrote stuff down because it's pretty cool to see when I thought the sky was falling and I made it through. And that's been enjoyable for me to read back and be like, I figured it out every single time. I had my back every single time. I was learning to love myself right here. I was learning to let go. I was grieving. I was learning to be patient with myself. It didn't make sense. I helped it make sense by just saying it doesn't make sense, and this is a good thing that it doesn't make sense because we would never do this. Good for us. So it can be kind of fun to go back and read your journals. Kind of cringy, but you're like, oh, I love that this old version of me, I love you, that you thought this was the end of it. It was just the beginning. You're gonna be fine. Okay, okay. Smear campaigns are dumb and immature. You didn't deserve it, but it's because you are needed somewhere far greater. Okay? So just relax. Enjoy the suck, go into the void, and know that you're gonna come out of it just fine and so much stronger and better. Okay? Okay, I love you, bye.